A Car Blog. Only Angrier

Friday, March 31, 2006

First, a Ford named "Alessandro Uzielli"? Come on. Made up. Second, what's his name? At least throw a Ford product name in there like they did for Edsel Ford. We bet in private they call him Thunderbird. Or T-bird. Or T. And what's Thunderbird's job? Product placement. Come on! That's not a job. Well, it's not a hard job.

Thunderbird: We'd like to pay you $10,000 to put a Ford in the show.
Producers: We need a car that won't start.
Thunderbird: That's why I'm here.
Producers: Ah ha! That's why we already picked a Ford.
Thunderbird: Dang it. I guess I'll go back to my 80-foot yacht.
Producers: And we'll go back to hookers and booze.
Thunderbird: Ah ha! That's what I said!

And we think it's a bit disingenuous when Thunderbird says:

"Failure is not an option," Uzielli, 39, told The Detroit News in an interview this week. "We cannot afford to fail. We have to succeed."

You can afford. You are richer than rich. It's like Arthur. But no butler. Maybe Thunderbird does have a butler. That'd be cool.

* Go to the mall. Watch people get in and out of minivan.
* Go to grocery store/Costco, etc. Watch people get in and out of minivan.
* Go to local schools. Watch people get in and out of minivan.
* Take vacations. Pack and unpack minivan.

Jalopnik reports: You Might Have Financial Irregularities... Ha! We don't have any comments, really, other than ha! OK, we'll steal this one line, "You might have financial irregularities if your version of seeking profitability is selling your most profitable business." Ha! Hmm, maybe that's not as funny as we first thought. Actually, it's sorta sad. What happened to GM? Man.... Thanks, Jalopnik. Now we're all bummed out.

How do they contradict, you ask? Well, Hyundai has the longest warranty in the business, and they certainly don't want to have to pay for stuff if it breaks, so the quality goes up. We'd be concerned about Chrysler since it just cut its warranty in half. We still believe a longer warranty is a good value for customers and a show of good faith from the manufacturers that they've made a great product and stand behind it. We bet this is just a ploy to get people to turn over cars faster so their car is always under warranty. Go, Hyundai!

Thursday, March 30, 2006

CNN/Money reports: Peugeots too slow, French police get Subarus. Ha! Slow French action. Actually, that sounds pretty sexy. Anyway, Dodge shoulda sent over them big Chargers all dolled up as police cars. Although, since we have no idea what Frenchie police cars look like, for all we know, no one woulda ever pulled over. But they'd be big. Maybe the WRX is better suited for chases, however. In which case, Ford shoulda sent over the Mustang. Man, we should get a job exporting cars to France.

The NY Times (registration required) reports: Automakers Use New Technology to Beef Up Muscle, Not Mileage. Power. We need more power! We have to get to the next red light faster! There's a graphic in the article showing how much faster a new Camry is than the 1975 Pontiac Firebird. OK, OK, the Firebird was weak and stupid, but the Camry is a lot faster. Almost 2 seconds faster to 60 mph. Heh, we'd like to smoke the doors off of that dude. Just 'cause he got the hot chicks in high school and we got C+'s on our midterms doesn't mean... What? Uh... Oh, right. We need to focus on fuel economy and not on power. This is something:

If 2005 model vehicles, with their better technology, had the performance and size of those in 1987, they would use only 80 percent of the gasoline they do today, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That alone would get the country nearly halfway to the goal President Bush set in his State of the Union address: to cut American oil consumption enough to nearly eliminate the need to import from the Middle East.

But Mr. Hellman (former EPA dude) sums it all up perfectly:

Improving mileage now would be easy if drivers sacrificed some zip in new cars, he said, "but in this country, we don't sacrifice for anything."

We know we're gonna get crap for this one, folks. Heck, most people think the name of our blog should be Hate Cars! Hate Cars! Love Claire! But, really, we love cars. We don't love that they pollute like crazy, use oil like crazy, and are often loud like crazy (does that work?), but we love 'em anyway. We'd sure like to see 'em pollute less, use less oil, and be near silent... so we'll wait. And we'll point out when we see what we think are mistakes. Like this: The Detroit News reports: SUVs, trucks face tougher mileage rules. When you start to read stuff such as:

"It is going to be a challenge for automakers but they are committed to meeting it," said Eron Shosteck, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. "There are going to be significant engineering questions that have to be addressed."

and

"I am closely reviewing the new CAFE rule regarding light trucks, but at first glance it appears to be a challenging standard for the industry that I hope it will be able to achieve," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn.

You know it's all B.S. If it was truly hard, manufacturers would be up in arms. And the environmental hippies would be saying crap like, "Man, we were wrong about President Bush. He's a stand-up dude. Here, have a toke." But what are they saying?

"This is the president who has said we are addicted to oil. But if this is the best we can do, we aren't going to get out of rehab," said spokesman Charlie Miller of the Environmental Defense.

Look, it's great that Hummers have to get better fuel economy, but 1. Passenger car requirements do not go up at all and 2. The new formula breaks vehicles into more categories so bigger trucks don't lower the overall average, so manufacturers who make the bigger dealies sort of get a pass.

The thing we don't get is, people actually love the cars that get better gas mileage! Hey, Government, don't ignore the passenger car segment by leaving it at 27.5. You should raise the requirements a few percentage points a year. Force these fat cats to innovate! What? There are car manufacturing lobbyists to convince you not to do that? You are pro-use-lotsa-oil anyway? Crap.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Dag nab bit, we'll get listed on the FastLane blog yet! Anyway, here's a bunch of mostly crappy news about GM. It's all pretty depressing, so read it only if you enjoy seeing GM go down or you like bad news.

Autoblog reports: Mercedes-Benz plant may be first in Alabama to unionize. Lots of interesting stuff here: There may be a union at a traditionally nonunion shop, it's not the UAW union, and the fight isn't for higher wages but partly to restore benefits for retirees. M-B is lucky because once it starts to slip, they can just point to the union and go, "See? Their fault. When they were just regular workers, they were great. But once they became a union, they sucked eggs. Eggs suckers. They're probably communists, too."

The Auto Prophet reports: Madame Guillotine at GM. It's hard enough getting canned, but to physically take the keys away from the employees... cold! And we don't mean cold in a good way. To immediately repossess a loaned car on the spot from someone you just canned! Man! We guess all of those years of pulling wings off flies were good practice for working in HR.